Category: The Bestseller Experiment

Healing Through Writing with Mira V Shah (and we won an award!)

I first heard of Mira Shah after reading her excellent blog on how to manage the expectations of debut authors (read it here), which ended up on The Bookseller and on pretty much every bit of writers’ social media. She’s spot on when it comes to how the industry is great when it comes to the big deals and ad campaigns, but can be lacking when it comes to the rest of us and how the launch days for our books can be a bit of a damp squib.

We also discuss how her writing came about through grieving, but if all that sounds a bit heavy for a Monday, don’t be put off. Mira is a delight and this is a really uplifting chat…

And at the end of the podcast, I tell Mr D all about my night in London’s glittering King’s Cross where I was honoured to collect our award for Best Books Podcast at the inaugural Independent Podcast Awards. It was an amazing night celebrating the terrific indie podcasts and I’ve added a whole bunch of them to my pod catcher. You can find out more about the award and the evening here.

Mark Stay gurning for the camera after collecting the award for Best Books Podcast for the Bestseller Experiment. Photo by Simon Brew.
Mark Stay with presenter Esther Manito at the Independent Podcast Awards 2023.
With Esther Manito at the Independent Podcast Awards

Michael R Miller is Epic

I did a panel with Michael R Miller at the MCM Comic Con yesterday and was once again struck by how generous he is with his advice. He’s done incredibly well since I met him at an Eastercon a few years ago, selling over 350,000 copies of his fantasy epic, but he’s always been the first to suggest new ideas and strategies for selling books and you would do well to heed his advice! It was great to get him back on the Bestseller Experiment to catch up on what he’s been up to, including getting Broken Binding editions of his books, having a D&D campaign based on his new series, and how he’s taken his experience with cystic fibrosis and used it in his fantasy world building…

And in the extended version for podcast supporters we discuss how you decided if you should write a series, trilogy or standalone, how to launch your audiobooks, and the differences between USA and UK editions of books. You can support the podcast here.

Getting Emotional with Ivy Ngeow

Ivy Ngeow is a powerhouse of creativity. A musician, a novelist and writer of cookery books, diet books, interior design, she’s done it. Her new novel is The American Boyfriend and she talks about how she studied bestsellers before writing it to better understand what makes a smash hit and it’s paid off as she now has an international hit and is signing books at places like Singapore airport!

Then in the extended edition for our Academy members and Patreon supporters, me and Mr D discuss the different routes to market for your novels, including airports, supermarkets and gift boxes and loot crates! You can support the podcast and get hundreds of hours of extra material here.

Heather Morris says Shut up and Listen…

This week we celebrate seven years of the Bestseller Experiment podcast and I can’t think of a better way to mark the occasion than with Heather Morris, bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and more who returns with a new novel, Sisters Under the Rising Sun, whichtransports the reader to the women in Japanese POW camps in WWII and is another incredibly powerful story.

Heather’s writing and her attitude to life and her work embodies everything we love about writers and it was such a privilege to speak with her.

And if that wasn’t enough, as a special little treat this episode includes the extended version of the podcast for free (normally reserved for podcast supporters and folk int he Bestseller Academy) and this week includes me giving tips for writing emotions and getting an emotional response from readers…

The Tiny, Weird Obsessions of Writers with Julie Owen Moylan

There’s a lovely bit in this week’s Bestseller Experiment podcast with novelist Julie Owen Moylan where she talks about writers wanting approval, ‘We want to get our homework marked.’ And it’s true, we set out as writers with dreams of our work getting great reviews and being loved by all… But one of the lessons you learn as soon as people start reading your stuff is that you can’t please everyone. It’s a fool’s errand and you’re much better off writing to please yourself first. And that can start by leaning into what Julie calls her ‘tiny, weird obsessions’. These are the things that you think no one will get. The thoughts, jokes and peculiarities that you think are completely unique to you. And they probably are, but that doesn’t mean others won’t understand. Because all those strange little idiosyncrasies are your voice. That’s what makes you unique and will make you writing unlike any other. Some people won’t get it, but those who do will absolutely love it. Be true to yourself. Be weird.

Pure Writing with Jesse Sutanto

We regularly hear from people on the podcast who struggle to find time to write. I think this is because writing is romanticised as this thing where you shut yourself away from the world for an intense period of time, then emerge blinking into the sunlight with a perfectly formed novel.

Jesse Sutanto revealed her secret in this week’s Bestseller Experiment podcast: pure writing. That is, four 15-minute sessions dotted through the day where she doesn’t even stop to take a sip of water. Working this way she manages to finish a draft of a novel in two months. So if you’ve been struggling to make time then maybe give it a go… Even just one fifteen minute session a day could make all the difference.

The episode is a corker and Jesse is a delight. We also discuss writing about specifics that become universal, Terry Pratchett and Oprah Winfrey and much more. And in the extended edition for our Patreon supporters and Academy members I dig into world building. Bring your shovel and support the podcast here.

Harriet Muncaster on the Bestseller Experiment: Creating Worlds

I saw a blog by a writer recently declaring that we should all aim for perfection. Their point being that once the book is out there, then you don’t have an opportunity to change it (which isn’t strictly true) and that we should all aim to make any book we write the best it possibly can be.

I agree that I want anything I write to be the best that I can do, but perfection…? Not sure it exists. And it can be the enemy of creativity, especially when you’re starting out. The idea of creating something as polished and perfect as your favourite author’s latest tome is intimidating at best, crippling at worst. Over time I’ve discovered that creating is a process of failing a little less each time. With each draft, each book, each script I’ve learned something that helped make the next one a little better. But it’s never perfect.

There’s a moment in this week’s interview with the brilliant Harriet Muncaster where she says she held off from starting a project because she wanted it to be perfect. Which meant for a long time she didn’t do anything at all. Then she eventually realised that, ‘If you don’t start something, then it never really develops.’ So if you’ve been putting off that novel, script, artwork, whatever, because you were worried that it wouldn’t be perfect then today’s the day to start it. It won’t be perfect. Nothing ever is. But as you work on it you will discover that it just might be better than you ever imagined.

Also in this week’s episode me and Mr D discuss being child-like and end up being very childish. And in the extended version I finally talk about my role in the Nautilus TV series and what’s happened at Disney+. You can listen to that by becoming a Chart Topper supporter here.

True Grit with Sarah Moorhead on the Bestseller Experiment

It was a delight to welcome back Sarah Moorhead to the Bestseller Experiment podcast this week. There’s a moment early on when she talks about creating great characters and how the ‘grit in the oyster makes the pearl’. I think the same can be said about Sarah who found herself in the perfect storm of her debut being launched in lockdown at the same time as she was dropped by her agent and publisher. There are few authors who could bounce back from that, and Sarah has done it brilliantly with her new novel The Treatment. Get inspired and have a listen/watch below and if you want more like that, there’s an extended version for podcast supporters where Sarah answers listener questions on resilience, self-belief, plotting, structure, why learning to write is like learning to drive and much more! You can get access to that and hundreds of hours of extra material by becoming a Chart Topper supporter of the podcast here.

Linwood Barclay Lie Maker

This is not to suggest that bestselling author Mr Barclay is a big fibber (The Lie Maker is the title of his latest thriller), but to be fair that’s what writers do for a living: make stuff up and pass it off as the truth. And Linwood Barclay gives us a ton of tips how to do that in this week’s episode of the podcast here…

This was a special episode for a few reasons. Not least that Mr D got to join me for the whole interview (he’s a big fan of Linwood), and that Linwood reveals all sorts of stuff about authors like Ross Macdonald and Stephen King, but we also get very excited about his Gerry Anderson Supercar model made by legendary film and TV model maker Martin Bower. If you want to skip straight to that bit (and you should because it’s a thing of beauty), it’s here…